R/C Yacht Phantom

With a purpose built R/C boat pond just down the road, and wanting a something a bit bigger than my KZ Kiwi R/C yacht, I had started on build a 1m yacht from scratch and got as far as making up the bulkheads and drawing out the outline on a building board.However after spotting a almost ready to sail Shunbo Phantom 1m yacht at a very good price, I decided to cheat and ordered it in, a tally of the parts and materials for the scratch build revealed it could be a rather spendy process so this way is much more HWMBO/ SWMBO friendly.

Of course a little assembly and tweaking is still required!You need to provide your radio gear and lead for the keel bulb, and some misc fittings to replace a few bits - being Chinese in origin some parts are suspect!

The hull is in fiberglass and looks to be a good job with the fiberglass well soaked in resin with no 'dry' spots apparent. For an ARTS yacht the scheme is fairly subdued with a yellow deck and carbon effect hull with only a handful of stickers to provide the decor.Packing was exceptional with plenty of airbags and bubblewrap, so no damage was incurred in transit.

The rudder servo and sail winch are already in situ with the sheets already spooled on. The plastic tray is clipped in place and removable for fitting radio gear.

First order of business is to assemble the stand.To protect the hull I've lined the cradles with foam draft stopper strip, the legs and braces were secured with thick as the fit was a little loose.Note: the feet for the stand are a very very tight fit and are angled to offset the slope of the legs, so double and triple check that they are the right way round as once in, they ain't coming out again!:

With the hull on the stand, the rudder can be fitted, taking care to keep it straight while fitting it to the rudder arm.To keep water out coat the rudder post in grease or Vaseline, taking care to keep it off the thread at the top.to make sure the rudder doesn't work loose, I secured the rudder arm nut to the rudder post with loctite.With this done I placed a big dollop of grease over the assembly to both lubricate and keep water out.With the rudder secured, the rudder hatch can be fitted. To seal against water entry, it's secured in place with electrical or hatch sealing tape.I've used some electrical tape for now.

Next step is fit the keel fin, which is a snug fit in its slot.I pressed the keel fin into place, then tightened up the securing nut with the supplied wrench until the rectangular stub at the top of the keel fin was flush with the bottom of the hull.The keel nut was also secured with loctite, I do not want the keel coming off, that's the kind of excitement I could do without.

The rig was quickly assembled and the radio gear temporarily installed so everything could be tested.With rudder and winch working perfectly, the yacht was de-rigged for improvements to the sails and rigging...Watch This Space!!

The radio I'm using is a Turnigy 9x 2.4ghz 9 channel computer radio - definitely overkill for this project, however since I already have two 9x's and each can store the settings for several models, I couldn't see the point of buying a 2 channel radio just for the yacht.

A little more work has been done on Phantom.The supplied stickers have all been removed from the hull as I did not trust the adhesive to stay put once wet and the design was a bit blah.Thanks to hubby knowing a sign writer through his work, we popped round to his place one evening and came away with these: He also made up some covers for the rudder hatch and strips to cover the sail battens.

looks pretty good once applied:Yes the spare bed is getting used as a workbench, and yes that's a cat under the yacht.